Talk:Mesoamerican ballgame/GA2

GA Reassessment

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
This article was listed as GA over five years ago. Judging by it's state when listed, I'm going to assume that simply the times have changed and GA criteria has become more strict. My main concerns are as follows:

Verifiability. There are numerous unreferenced claims, some entire paragraphs, all throughout the article. Statements like “Since the Toltec king apparently no longer understood the purpose of his pact ... this ball game match signified the beginning of the end of the Toltec reign” seem likely to be challenged and may not meet minimum required references.
Lead. Today we generally try to ensure the name of the article is mentioned in the lead, and in bold (MOS:BOLDTITLE). The paragraphs are rather short (MOS:PARAGRAPHS) and perhaps should be consolidated to match WP:LEADLENGTH. Lastly there may be unnecessary inclusion of citations when they could be supplied elsewhere in the article (WP:CITELEAD).
Prose. There are bulleted lists throughout the article that I feel could better be presented as prose (MOS:LINEBREAKS).
Layout. Specifically with images. The positioning may disrupt the flow of the article, especially when floating them to the left at the start of a section (MOS:IMAGELOCATION). Also some images are strangely positioned in the Notes and References sections (WP:LAYIM). The References section itself seems rather unorthodox. While a list of general references is fine, I feel there is a lack of text-source integrity.

I do not think this article is a lost cause, but it may take a good amount of time to get up to today's GA standards. Let's hear what other editors have to say before delisting it. — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:03, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not up to today's GA standards; however I have solid sources on the ballgame; if I have time I will try to work through to see if I can salvage the article. As for the images and formatting, that should be easy enough to sort out. Simon Burchell (talk) 11:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a first pass at the References section to separate the cited sources from further reading. Unfortunately, there is a lack of referencing consistency - and some cited sources are not listed in the refs; others refer to surname only, where multiple sources from the same author are listed. Quite a mess.
I've also reformatted some of the pictures, and removed most of the forced image sizes.

More to follow. Simon Burchell (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is not up to the current standard. Thanks for doing this and for any work to improve the article that you are going to do!User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article looks much better now, but I still see issues with verifiability, the lead, and prose. I'm afraid I'm going to have to proceed with delisting this article... but don't let that discourage you from improving it! If I see it at WP:GAN I'll be happy to review it again. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]